What are some examples of "visually beautiful" math texts?

Question

Are there good examples of math textbooks that seamlessly combines art, cartoon drawing or computer graphics with the texts? I know that there are a few books on the market, which are not text-book per se, that are geared towards general audience, where there are plenty of artistic figures naturally generated by the phenomena under study, usually things of geometric nature, Escher tiling, or things like chaos.

Wolfram's a New Kind of Science comes to mind. What are some other examples of "visually beautifu" or "artistic" math textbooks or texts.

Does this answer your question? Textbooks for visual learners — user1147844, Feb 25 '23 at 23:59

score 10 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 01 '20 at 13:37

10

Here's a very old suggestion: Euclid's Elements. Specifically, Oliver Byrne's 1847 rendition of the text with its elegant diagrams and design aesthetic, and Nicholas Rougeux's online conversion of the text into a digital edition, available for free here.

answered Dec 01 '20 at 13:37

RavenclawPrefect

17,299

1

That is the most ridiculous "s" I've ever seen. – Dec 01 '20 at 13:47
It was in vogue in Byrne’s time, I believe; I do wish the creator of the digital version had allowed a setting to turn it off, though. – RavenclawPrefect Dec 01 '20 at 13:48
@SenZen: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s Many old documents including the Bill of Rights contain that. I for my part am happy that the usage of long vs. short s in this rendition seems correct. – Torsten Schoeneberg Dec 01 '20 at 18:42

Markus Scheuer · Answer 2 · 2020-12-02T12:00:37.700

A Topological Picturebook by George K. Francis

is full of enlightening pictures of topological structures. Many of them are little masterpieces of drawing art and support this way a better understanding of the theme.

Sometimes it might also be interesting to see behind the curtain.

In A mathematical typography a grandmaster shares with us some ideas about this subject. Here we can get a glimpse about the extraordinary creativity and the deep knowledge which is necessary to produce aesthetically pleasing mathematical texts and pictures.

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 01 '20 at 08:41

3

The book of Douglas Hofstadter, ''Gödel, Escher, Bach - an eternal golden braid'', is an excellent example how lively mathematics can be. The pics of Escher are impressive.

answered Dec 01 '20 at 08:41

Wuestenfux

20,964

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 01 '20 at 08:19

2

A good example is, in my opinion, Islamic Geometric Patterns by Jay Bonner.

answered Dec 01 '20 at 08:19

Martin Peters

737

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 21 '21 at 22:06

How about Conway, Burgiel, and Goodman-Strauss's "The Symmetries of Things"?

It's broadly about group theory, but it takes the most stunning visual approach I've ever seen. It has lots of full page illustrations, and basically every page has a margin full of pretty pictures related to the current topic. Here's some examples: